A UFC 79 fight between Matt Hughes and Georges St. Pierre — a fight booked late last week because Matt Serra was injured and unable to fight Hughes — came about for a simple reason: St. Pierre asked for it.

In a story posted today on MMAjunkie.com’s content-partner site, Yahoo! Sports, Dave Meltzer reports that St. Pierre asked for the fight as soon as he heard of Serra’s herniated disc and subsequent withdrawal from the UFC 79 main event.

BUT according to a new blog post on matt-hughes.com, Hughes states that he, in fact, requested the fight with St. Pierre — largely because he wanted to avoid their inevitable showdown from happening in St. Pierre’s native Canada.

It is great to see that GSP wanted this fight to happen. I think that this shows that GSP's head is going to be in this fight from when the door closes to when Hughes is layed out!!!!!!!! GSP will win this one.

See i never even thought about this cos im so far from questioning whether or not GSP would want this fight, i knew he would want it badly it was just a question of whether the UFC would make it

I think Hughes is lying when he says he wanted it, he would much rather fight Serra and although im sure he would like to avenge this loss he cant be confident after such a 1 sided beatdown, tho i do believe he wanted to avoid it being in Montreal, GSP will have more fans in Vegas tho i think

I love the fact that a GSP win could severely hurt Hughes' confidence (we've seen what a bad loser he is on TUF) and possibly even guarantee a Serra win, which would surely be the final nail in the coffin for Hughes' career.. Let's hope what should happen DOES happen...

of course Hughes doesn't want this fight, he looked like a 12 year old at Christmas after Serra beat GSP. Jumping up smiling, all excited.Ear to ear grin on his face knowing that he wouldn't have to go against GSP again to get back to the belt. So this is just perfect, RUSH all the way!

Yeah Hughes got beat... but he beat GSP way worse than GSP beat him their first match up. Hughes wants a rematch to avenge his loss. What proud person wouldn't? Pride is obviously Hughes' downfall, but that doesn't mean he's a chicken shit like some of you guys are trying to claim. Seriously people, quit your fighter bashing- it's pathetic. I've never once been so stupid as to claim that these fighters are "afraid" of anyone. Once you've been in as many scraps with the baddest people on the planet as these guys have, you really think they're afraid of anyone? I like the insight TUF can give on certain fighter personalities, but some of you TUFers have taken this crap way out of control.

GSP is not the same fighter that lost to Hughes the first time. That is such a useless comparison. He is matured into a fighter on a much higher level. Speaking of afraid, I think GSP was a little afraid of Hughes the first time they fought. Do you really think fighters cannot experience being intimidated? Well they are humans so i think they can, GSP couldnt even look Hughes in the eyes B4 their first fight. The second fight Hughes was smirking the whole time, I'm thinking thsi was an indicator of him knowing he was overwhelmed by GSP. Im not saying Hughes is a chicken, I'm just saying that I think GSP has his number now and even he knows it.

I think we're missing the bigger picture here. How much weight did Jon Fitch put on???? I mean they said there is no way he would make 170 in like 35 days. What weight has he been walking around at. It is this type of thing that seperates top tier fighters from a guy destined to sit around 3-7 in a division.

Oh by the way Hughes and St. Pierre have shown nothing but class since Serra's injury and I expect nothing short of a war. GSP will win though in the third or fourth round. Thank you Dana for making this a five rounder.

GSP is not the same fighter that lost to Hughes the first time. That is such a useless comparison. He is matured into a fighter on a much higher level. Speaking of afraid, I think GSP was a little afraid of Hughes the first time they fought. Do you really think fighters cannot experience being intimidated? Well they are humans so i think they can, GSP couldnt even look Hughes in the eyes B4 their first fight. The second fight Hughes was smirking the whole time, I'm thinking thsi was an indicator of him knowing he was overwhelmed by GSP. Im not saying Hughes is a chicken, I'm just saying that I think GSP has his number now and even he knows it.

I mean Bo Cantrell wsa beat be4 he stepped in the cage. If Blake Bowman had to fight Mac Danzig you would have seen fear embodied. I believe that every emotion is nothing but energy and it is whether you harnes that fear(energy) is a positive way that makes the difference between fear as a motivator and fear as an excuse.

GSP is not the same fighter that lost to Hughes the first time. That is such a useless comparison. He is matured into a fighter on a much higher level. Speaking of afraid, I think GSP was a little afraid of Hughes the first time they fought. Do you really think fighters cannot experience being intimidated? Well they are humans so i think they can, GSP couldnt even look Hughes in the eyes B4 their first fight. The second fight Hughes was smirking the whole time, I'm thinking thsi was an indicator of him knowing he was overwhelmed by GSP. Im not saying Hughes is a chicken, I'm just saying that I think GSP has his number now and even he knows it.

I mean Bo Cantrell wsa beat be4 he stepped in the cage. If Blake Bowman had to fight Mac Danzig you would have seen fear embodied. I believe that every emotion is nothing but energy and it is whether you harnes that fear(energy) is a positive way that makes the difference between fear as a motivator and fear as an excuse.

I agree that a certain level of "fear" can be harnessed to the better or for the worse, but comparing Bo Cantrell and Blake Bowman to Matt Hughes, GSP, Fedor Emelianenko or Chuck Liddell is definitley not the route I was taking when I said what I said. GSP respected the hell out of Hughes and that's why he couldn't look him in the eyes in their first fight. He wasn't scared of the man himself, IMO. He just had put him on a pedastal too high to believe he himself could reach. Therefore he defeated himself by not believing in himself, not because of fear. The two are very different IMO.

I mention the above names because within the past 2 months I have seen all of those fighters and more mentioned as people who are "afraid" of people on these forums. Quite frankly I'm tired of hearing it and it sounds like a bunch of Tank Abbotts running around talking. Giving these top tier fighters no respect whatsoever.

Last edited 11/26/07 4:11PM server time by JackelopeEdit note/reason: n/a

no matter what hughes says he does NOT want to fight st. pierre, thats the biggest lie i ever heard, he wanted the easy road with GnP with serra as champ, now he wont get the belt back unless he gets super lucky like the first fight where GSP had almost no sprawl

As most of you know, Serra has dropped out of the fight due to a back injury. I found out and was told that I get to basically pick my opponent. The UFC had called some welterweights, some said they wouldn’t take the fight; but ultimately I got to choose and I chose Georges St. Pierre. I asked to fight GSP.

I think there are a few things that will be in my favor in doing this. I get to fight in Vegas, what I consider my home fighting area, NOT Canada. I don’t think it’s a big deal to switch an opponent over a month out, it’s just not a concern for me. Before I was fighting a guy holding the belt, now I’m fighting a guy that I consider number two in the world. Anyone who thinks this fight will be like the second fight with GSP will be shown wrong on December 29th. THIS IS MY FIGHT!